The sport of backpacking has achieved an amazing growth in popularity in recent years. This has, in turn, produced a great increase in production of backpacks for hikers. It has also stimulated the development of many improvements in designs of pack assemblies for carrying clothes, food, equipment, and water.
There are four basic types of packs including: a frame pack having a shoulder harness and a hip belt for larger capacities (i.e., 3000 cubic inches and up); a frameless pack, having a shoulder harness and hip belt; a day pack having a shoulder harness; and, for a minimum load, a hip belt pack. Frameless packs are used for medium capacity loads (i.e., 1500-3000 cubic inches) and are desirable because of their lighter weight (i.e., 2-3 pounds), as compared with the frame packs which typically are 4-6 pounds.
Many improved designs have been based on the recent discovery that the backpack should be allowed to swing, to a restricted degree, with each stride of the load-carrying person. The hiker can carry his pack for a longer period of time, with less fatigue and greater comfort, if the pack load on his back is supported by the lumbar region and movable, within limits, so that his body does not jerk the pack through a series of forceful oscillations corresponding to the walking or running rhythm. The flexibility of the pack reduces the pounding on the hiker's back.
On the other hand, it is important that the swinging movement be not only restricted but also adjustable to the peculiar characteristics of each hiker. Every person has a slightly different body build, muscle distribution, and stride characteristic. Even the same person may prefer changing the adjustment of his pack assembly from time to time, in order to switch the load slightly from one set of muscles to another. In previously known moveable backpacks, a crude combination of restricted movement and adjustability has been achieved by simply loosening the canvas straps by which it has been customary to tie the lower end of the pack to a padded waist belt encircling the waist of the load-carrying person. Such flexible straps permit the pack frame to swing in unpredictable manners, not adequately restricted for the needs of comfort of the wearer. Also, adjustability has proven unreliable, since a canvas strap may stretch, or loosen.
Many expert backpackers prefer a pack assembly which includes connections directly to the sides of the waist belt. A person carrying such a pack feels the load on the sides of his hips, rather than as something hanging down behind him. Unfortunately, such a pack frame mounting precludes the use of the swinging feature, also desirable to most expert backpackers. It is a feature desired by many expert backpackers that the pack load be mostly carried by the waist belt.
It is another desire of active packers, such as runners, that the body of the runner be allowed to freely pivot at the shoulders and the hips while the pack and gear remain in a relatively neutral, vertical position. This pivoting motion occurs with runners' shoulders and hips, skiers' shoulders and hips, and bikers' hips.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide a soft, comfortable backpack that supports the pack in the comfortable lumbar region of the back, which allows pivotal body motion at hips and shoulders and allows complete adjustability of load location and shoulder harness attachments. It is another object of this invention to provide easy access to water bottles that are contained within thermally insulated holsters.